In conventional electronic transactions on the world wide web, an internet merchant typically provides an internet consumer who wishes to purchase goods or services from the merchant with an order form to fill out in order to complete the transaction. The order form typically requests payment information (e.g., a credit card number and expiration date) and shipping information (e.g., a mailing address). In some conventional processes, the purchasing consumer types in the information needed or requested by the merchant each time the consumer wishes to place an order.
Electronic wallets allow users to avoid typing in such information repeatedly by storing the information in the wallet. They can also automatically perform conventional security functions, automated payment functions, and protocol functions required. There are several conventional electronic wallets with a variety of operation modes. Some electronic wallets are merchant wallets (e.g., Microsoft's Wallet). They are embedded in route and some are located at a merchant web site. Some electronic wallets are located at a third-party's web site. Such wallets may comprise either a single electronic wallet for several merchants or separately-branded wallets for each merchant. Typically, if the wallets are separately branded for each merchant, the wallets will have a different look and feel for each merchant, but will use common software to carry out the wallet's function. Other wallets are consumer-oriented (e.g., conventional Brodia brand and Obongo brand wallets), and comprise wallets for a consumer that the consumer can use to pay for goods or services at various merchant sites. These wallets can be located at an end-user device, such as a personal computer or smart card (e.g., a conventional American Express Blue Card), or at a third party web site (e.g., a conventional GlobeSet site).
Electronic wallets may also include one-click shopping systems (e.g., similar to that employed by Amazon.com) in which the consumer inputs the consumer's credit-card information upon registration, and such information is stored by the merchant. Subsequently, the consumer provides the consumer's identity (through the use of cookies, password, or other authentication technique) by simply selecting (by clicking a mouse button, for example) the items that the consumer wishes to purchase, which gives the merchant permission to charge the stored credit card number with the purchase price, and ship the product to the associated address. Electronic wallets may also include or be associated with payment engines, such as software and services associated with implementing a payment protocol (e.g. Secure Electronic Transaction (SET)) and link to a payment processing service. Examples of conventional full-featured wallets include those associated with GlobeSet and IBM.
Conventional wallets comprise a single entity that operates between a merchant and a consumer. That is, a conventional wallet is essentially in the middle of the merchant and the consumer, and is used by both. The consumer communicates with the wallet, and the wallet communicates with the merchant through the merchant's web site. The merchant receives information from the wallet.
Thus, typical conventional wallet systems and transactions are structured such that a single electronic wallet is in communication with both the consumer and the merchant to carry out an internet transaction. In some conventional systems, when a merchant requests information associated with an order from a consumer by sending a form to the consumer, the consumer's personal computer sends the request to an electronic wallet associated with the consumer. The wallet completes the order form by providing the requested information by providing information previously input by the consumer, and the consumer fills in the information not filled in by the wallet. The wallet then sends the populated form containing the provided information to the merchant. Such consumer-oriented electronic wallets may reside on the consumer's personal computer, on the web server of the consumer's bank, or other location.
In other conventional systems, a single wallet residing on the merchant server may be used (sometimes called a “virtual wallet”). In such systems, a consumer registers with the merchant and provides requested information (e.g., credit card number) in a web-based form provided by the merchant. The information is stored in the wallet. Later, when the customer orders goods or services from the merchant site, the merchant site will access the wallet stored on its server that is associated with the consumer, and the request form will appear pre-filled out, or pre-populated, when sent or shown to the consumer. If the consumer wishes to change any information pre-filled out in the form, the consumer alters the information by editing the pre-populated data and providing any missing data. The consumer then sends the form data to the merchant. Such a wallet is sometimes called a merchant wallet. The merchant wallet may reside at the merchant's bank, on the merchant's server, or on another server. Likewise, an end user may choose to have more than one consumer wallet. Each wallet may provide different incentives motivating the end user to use different wallets at different times and under different circumstances, or to switch between wallet providers.
End-user electronic-wallet providers and merchants (and their wallet providers) sometimes promote their wallets as the preferred wallet. For example, a merchant may promote its wallet as the wallet that the merchant prefers its customers use when purchasing goods or services from the merchant.
Some merchants will accept payment only through their preferred electronic wallet, thereby causing their preferred wallet to function as their exclusive electronic wallet. Others will accept multiple wallets, but will provide some benefit to customers who use the merchant's preferred wallet, or otherwise encourage the use of their preferred wallet.
There are a variety of disadvantages associated with conventional wallet systems and methods. For example, situations arise in which a merchant promotes the use of the merchant's preferred electronic wallet, but consumers that visit the merchant's web site have their own preferred electronic wallets (e.g., an electronic wallet from a supplier of such wallets). A consumer may find the look and feel of the consumer's preferred wallet much more desirable than that of other wallets.
A consumer may have multiple electronic wallets for use with multiple merchants, but such a situation is often undesirable because it is a burden to the consumer to update, track, and maintain the consumer's data in multiple wallets. Moreover, standardization of information communicated from a wallet to a merchant is often important. Examples of such standardized data include credit-card number, expiration date of the associated card and shipping information.
One disadvantage of conventional systems using a merchant wallet is that the information stored by the merchant may become old and invalid. For example, the consumer may move after providing the information to the merchant for storage in the merchant wallet. Thus, when ordering from the merchant afterward, the consumer must physically change the address shown. As another example, the information stored and shown may comprise an expired credit card or a credit card that the consumer does not wish to use for the particular transaction.
Thus, it is desirable to a consumer to use the consumer's preferred wallet (which, in conventional systems, is sometimes multiple wallets), and it is desirable to a web merchant for consumers to use the merchant's preferred wallet. In the conventional mode of operation, these desirable qualities are often not met (as it would require users to maintain and update a multiplicity of wallets, and to remember how to log into each wallet). It is further desirable to provide a wallet system and method not having the disadvantages described above. What is needed is a system and method for allowing a consumer to use one or more of the consumer's preferred wallets and for the merchant to receive order data from the merchant's preferred wallet and that eliminates or minimizes the disadvantages of conventional systems and methods as discussed above.